


Its Motion Is Natural, Not Violent

by ERNest



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Communication, Love Confessions, M/M, Stargazing, They've been in love for a long time but this is one more step along that path, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 07:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19825057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: On a bus that isn't heading for Oxford, everything is new, and some old things are revisited.Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is natural, not violent.-- Nicolaus Copernicus





	Its Motion Is Natural, Not Violent

Aziraphale and Crowley are sitting on a bus. This is nothing new. What _is_ new is that it is not the number nineteen bus, nor is it any bus in the London transit system. That’s fine, says Crowley; it’ll go there anyway, and Aziraphale just has to believe him.

What’s different is that this isn’t _any_ of their usual rendezvous spots, alternative or not. And why should it be? The Cold War of their respective sides has subsided now that the Great War it was meant to be leading up to has been killed in its cradle, and so there is no need to be clandestine with each other.

What’s new is that they’re sitting side by side instead of the not so fiendish fiend getting behind him. This oughtn’t to be strange either: the bus was the only meeting place where they _weren’t_ sitting beside each other, never touching but always facing the same way. Still, it feels like some boundary has been unbound beyond the power of either of them to reinstate it and he doesn’t know why something found should feel so much like loss.

He didn’t mind Crowley leaning forward over the back of his seat or the breath of his news – for good or for ill – brushing the nape of his neck. He didn’t mind the game he used to play of trying not to turn round for as long as he could, of directing his response to his newspaper or to the mostly empty coffee cup some lout discarded on the adjacent seat. He _never_ minded the notes of laughter or worry or anything else in a voice he can’t see.

And he’ll get used to this arrangement of limbs and body heat too, if he has to. He’ll try not to be so everlastingly conscious of the mere inches separating them, where they usually leave room for another person or two. Though now that he really thinks about it he can’t say whether that’s for propriety or merely to accommodate Crowley’s spider-skinny legs and tendency to sprawl.

He’s taking care not to take up too much space now, which Aziraphale appreciates but wishes weren’t necessary. If Crowley does have to stretch out, he does it by extending his feet into the aisle, though he’ll pull them back when a passenger needs to get off. He doesn’t even wait for a chiding look from Aziraphale, which is good because he’s too distracted to give them.

They exchanged quiet words when they first sat down and Aziraphale barely remembers what was said between them. They’re both bone-weary and winedrunk and nearly-ended along with the rest of this mad beautiful planet. The silence save for the occasional rumble of wheels on uneven roads is a soothing companion – better than conversation of nothing, better than the distance they take such care to maintain, and better, maybe, than any spark that might happen if one of them did reach out to close that distance.

So Aziraphale says nothing and just looks out the window at the subtle shades of black as they melt and flow into each other. His eyes are better than most so he can squint through his chalk-shy reflection and pick out shapes that might be trees or barns or once, a startled deer. He’s been newly reincorporated and in a way that no one’s ever done before, which he’s found can tire a new body out so he rests his forehead against the glass until the motor turns his skull into a blender. Even that feels nice for a while and when it’s not he sits back up and quietly folds his hands on his lap.

The angel contemplates the physicality of travel and the finality of a destination. He lets his arm soak in the starlight blocked by clouds and satellite signals yet inexorably approaching, and he considers how constellations are mostly patterns that can only be seen from certain angles. From all these thoughts Aziraphale concludes that –

“Crowley!” It comes out sharper than he intends or notices, and he’s gripping his left knee because when the moment came he couldn’t reach for Crowley’s right.

“Yes. Angel?” His alarm is sketched in every line of him as he searches for pain, for fear, for anything he can _fix_. Finding nothing immediate, his gaze softens into what Aziraphale now realizes is the way he always looks at him.

“Crowley, ask me again. Please.”

“Aziraphale. Angel.” His body shifts to be an invitation. “Even if this isn’t going to become a puddle of burning goo anytime soon, we can go off together!”

“Together…” he repeats, and presses two fingers against his two lips to trap the precious word there. “Together, yes,” he says, “but not to leave the Earth.”

“Oh no?” Crowley is one part amused and two parts so hopeful it threatens to punch through to fear.

“No; we’ve thrown in our lot with humanity,” he says at once. “So offer what you did in 1967. One more time.”

“I’ll give you a lift, anywhere you want to go,” he says, a smile melting onto his face.

“The only place I want to go, demon, is wherever you are. Let’s go home.”

"Yes," Crowley breathes. He takes his hand and they take each other home.


End file.
